When Diego Maradona lived in the house opposite

Fate wanted me to spend a few years of my childhood seeing Diego Armando Maradona almost every day. The children who studied at the Aula school learned, with great excitement, that the then best player in the world would come to live right in front of us, in Avinguda Mare de Déu de Lorda, number 21, in the Pedralbes neighbourhood of Barcelona.

We learned of his arrival in that mansion due to the huge works going on there and the traffic queue of people who preceded him and who then always accompanied him, more typical of the court of a king than a football player. Because already back then, when Maradona was not yet 'Maradona', he was already a living divinity, one of these few celebrities whom, before globalization, was still known in every corner of the world. The children who went to Aula had to pass in front of his house, the immense wall of which, all orange brick, began in the lower street, a mansion in which we often saw his relatives, his manager Jorge Cysterpiller, with his unmistakable hair, and his then-wife, Claudia Villafañe.

We often saw Maradona at school kick-out time, at 5.30 in the afternoon, on days when he had no game, and it was recurring entertainment to pass by his door and ask for an autograph, A request that we knew would be honoured, because Diego applied, at least in Barcelona, an immovable principle: he was unfriendly with adults and charming with children, to whom he never denied a greeting, a signature or a smile.

The climax of our special relationship came after that tackle by Goicoecha, one of the wildest in football history, which left him seriously injured. Maradona would spend whole afternoons sitting in a chair with his leg in a cast in the backyard of his house, and he would periodically open the doors to a dozen children to sign autographs for us, even in our geography notebooks, and talk kindly with us, if we were able to say something, paralyzed and gaping as we were in the amazement of being within touching distance of our idol.

Maradona's house on Avinguda Mare de Déu de Lorda, long after he left Barça in a very sad way, was transformed for some into a place of worship and pilgrimage, honouring the name of the street and his own biography. The estate remained practically intact until just two years ago, when the remains of orange bricks that stripped away the limits of our dreams could still be seen. It would be good if the city council put a plaque there in memory of his time in Barcelona and Barça. From my childhood and that of all those children at Aula, thank you for everything, Diego.